stardanced

I thought the Shoot reunion was appropriate for the characters. Of course those two would quickly escalate to a suicide stand-off as soon as they saw each other again. They have each been ready to sacrifice themselves for the other since Shaw ran into gunfire to allow the others to escape in the elevator. Shaw killed herself in 7000 simulations to avoid killing Root. And Root has been using her own life as collateral to play chicken with the Machine to try to find Shaw for a year, starting with her walk on a windy ledge that led to their trip to the asylum. We saw in Root's butter-churning and ballerina identities that she has never stopped asking the Machine to find Shaw for her, and she was more than willing to blow her own cover to push the Machine into action. Samaritan wasn't able to turn Shaw, but it was (maybe inadvertently) successful in conditioning her to blow her own brains out if she ever ran into Team Machine again. The only reason that it didn't work is that Root has been inadvertently conditioning herself to immediately put her own life at risk to save Shaw without wasting much time on any less-drastic options. The fact that Samaritan never once guessed that Root would do that to save Shaw is a prime example of how Samaritan just doesn't get it. Because Samaritan sees every life as irrelevant and replaceable, no one is worth sacrificing anything for. Samaritan doesn't understand loyalty or sacrifice even after watching Shaw commit suicide 7000 times because it doesn't understand the value of life. Harold taught the Machine the value of life so well that it was willing to sacrifice itself for Harold and Root in the season 4 finale. It recruits killers like Root, Shaw, and John to do its bidding, but each of them demonstrated a deep loyalty and attachment to someone they would risk danger to avenge (Root's friend Hannah, Shaw's partner, Jessica) even before the Machine brought them into the team. And they all, especially Root, have a stronger appreciation of human life since they began working with the Machine.

I'm new to the show, and I thought this was the strongest episode yet. I loved everything about it (from Trisha's tragic story to everything about the wheelchair scared straight girl). But what intrigued me most was Crazy Eyes' use of Shakespeare. The plays she quoted in this episode were Coriolanus and Measure for Measure--not run-of-the-mill high school reading list Shakespeare. And her use of the quotes was completely appropriate; she wasn't just spouting language. The first was a speech by Caius Martius (Coriolanus) when he responds in anger and disgust to a crowd of plebeians who have rejected him: You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate As reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize As the dead carcasses of unburied men That do corrupt my air, I banish you; And here remain with your uncertainty! If the writer of the episode had wanted "generic crazy Shakespeare," Lady Macbeth or Ophelia in their mad scenes would have been fine, but the Coriolanus quote works really well as a quote that insults and intimidates a crowd of young girls into never coming back to prison. Her next quote was even more fitting and even more surprising. It's a response to Piper's indignation that everyone is calling her a lesbian, so the obvious and easy quote would have been Gertrude's "the lady doth protest too much" from Hamlet. A common and familiar saying from a well-known play that lots of high school students read. But Isabella's "little honor to be much believed" from Measure for Measure works even better. Gertrude's line reveals her own guilt and hypocrisy, and Crazy Eyes wants to call attention to Piper's. Isabella's line is directed to Angelo to call attention to his hypocrisy, so it works better to insult Piper, and it fits better with how Crazy Eyes thinks Piper treated her. So far I haven't seen anything from Crazy Eyes that would indicate that she understood literature (or anything) well enough to use relatively obscure Shakespeare quotes that precisely. So I'm left wondering if this was a writer who was willing to sacrifice accurate characterization in order to demonstrate how well they know Shakespeare or if this was a well-written indication that Crazy Eyes has an intellect/education that will be addressed later. I hope it's the latter.